Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-03-12
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.
All Labor Is Entitled to the Protection of
the Law.
Chicago Herald.

the Law.
Chicago Herald.
a fundamental and mischieVous error
made by members of the Knights Of Labor
| lies in the claim which is sought to be en-
forced by terrorism that a WOTktngman
not q member of that organization has no
rights under the law aud shall not be per
mitted to carry out any contract he may
| choose to make for his own labor il that
contract places him at g bench which 8
| knight of LABOR has vacated. There is
! colossal impu6e nce in such claim; it is
grOtesquely egotistIcal and when asserted
| with force aud arms justiies the calling
out of every agency possessed by lawfully
organized communities to protect the
rights of individuals from invasion by
such labor organizations.
All labor is not organized. There are
| tens OF thousands of men who do not care
| to surrender their individuality into the
keeping Of q committee, who, even II
| they seek to act for the best interests o.
all, cannot possibly be so good Judge
of mans needs and desires as ne him
self. Native indep -ndence OF mIndI edu-
Gated or other, revOlts agaiI st the tyran-
ny of government by committee so abso-
lutte that, though man need the reward
Of daily toll to provide shoes Tor
his children, or comforts for the
wife who may be in travail the
next week, or make up q payment
upon the homestead which he has man
fully struggled to possess, ne shall not
take heed of these, but upon the mere
nod of 8 man whom he knows only by
name, and who will never know him even
by name, shall throw his tools in q corner
and walk out The knight has thus sur
rendered his individuality. He takes the
chance that his committeeman mav be
using him in what to him is matter of
life and death as a mere cats paw to at
tain some end beneficial to the committee
man. He lapses into idIeness which he
cannot change without an order from that
tyranny his own suffrage has set up, and,
unless he have Cl3ar sense of right and
wrong and the moral stamina TO bear him
self without reprCaCh, he will speedily
find himself personally an assailant of
men who with absolute right have taken
the place he has vacated.
Labor organizations striving by lawful
means TO attain the best possible reward
under the happiest possible conditions
are proper and desirable. But men who
decline to join them must not therefore
be deprived of the chance of existence
and the protection of the law. morgan
lied labor might seem to be entitled to 8
tenderer care from society than banded
labor. The individual must work ont his
own maintenance. If he strikes no
powerful organization promises to
maintain him in tdieness. Whatever
his hand fndeth to do he must
do with his might, for the night
cometh when no man can labor. He
will be called "scab" by men who are
eating the substance of their brethren
laborlng elsewhere; he may be waylaid
and beaten by ruftiAns, but under the in
exorable law of nature he is compelled to
earn his daily bread, and in the doing it
be has no protector but the law. The
proposition found practically in the atti-
tude of certain Knights of Labor, that
because he is not one of them he shall not
enjoy that protection, is monstrously ab-
surd
The elemental maxim that all labor is
entitled to the protection of law organ
lied labor would amend to read No labor
is entitled to the protection of law unless
it Is banded in q secret Organizations